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DCC Corner Consisting and locomotive headlights On today’s railroads, most dieselpowered trains run with multiple units controlled by a single engineer. Part of the reason diesels replaced steam locomotives was that the tractive effort of the diesels can be matched to the train’s weight simply by adding or subtracting locomotives. On our layouts, running multiple locomotives together with Digital Command Control (DCC) is called consisting, and it can be accomplished in several ways. This month, I’ll focus on how to control diesel locomotive lighting effects in a consist. Same address. The simplest way to run multiple units together with DCC is to program the decoders in each locomotive to the same address. This is most efficient with a permanently coupled set of locomotives, such as an A-B-A set of F units. For instance, I have a set of F3s numbered 2200A, 2200B, and 2200C. Since I use four-digit addressing on my layout, I like to have the decoder address match the unit’s road number, so I have the 2200 part covered. The A, B, and C part is a bit of a problem because that’s more than four digits. I could assign the units decoder addresses 2201, 2202, and 2203, but I also have a locomotive numbered 2201B, so that won’t work. And, I don’t want these units to be 72 Model Railroader • www.ModelRailroader.com exceptions to my rule of matching the decoder address to the road number, making it difficult for my operators to figure out how select these engines. To solve my dilemma, I used a drawbar to permanently link the units and assigned the threeunit consist the address 2200. The rear unit is facing the opposite direction, so I had to reverse its direction using Configuration Variable (CV) 29. Now all of the locomotives respond to the information packets addressed to 2200. Controlling the headlights and Mars lights in the A units is still a problem. I don’t like directional lighting because it isn’t prototypical, but I made an exception in this case. I felt it was a good compromise, since the A-B-A set is rarely used for switching. When the 2200A is leading, its headlight is lit and the trailing 2200B’s headlight is off. The lighting effect is opposite when 2200B is on the point. I used F1 to control the Mars light on 2200A, and F2 to operate it on 2200B. I wrote this on the engine cards for the A-B-A set so operators know how to activate the Mars light. Universal consisting. Some DCC systems, such as Digitrax, use universal consisting as the primary method of consisting. Locomotives This month, Mike Polsgrove explains different methods of operating locomotive headlights in a consist. Bill Zuback photo with different addresses can be controlled as one unit. In this method, the DCC system’s command station keeps track of which units are in a consist. Each manufacturer has a different method for universal consisting. On my NCE system, it’s called old style consisting. Despite the name, it has some advantages, especially for lighting effects. Since the command station keeps track of the consist, it sends the same speed and direction (or the reverse direction in the case of a locomotive running backwards) information packet to each locomotive. Function and lighting information is sent only to the lead locomotive, so only its headlight is lit. The disadvantage of universal consisting is that when the locomotive reaches the end of its run, you must break the consist and remake it with the last locomotive in the consist as the lead unit. Some systems have a limit on the number of locomotives that can be put in a consist with universal consisting. Advanced consisting. A third method of consisting is called advanced consisting. In this method, CV19 is programmed to